Board Meeting: 01/22/13 (Audio of Edited Out Portion of the Meeting) Superintendent Withers attempting to distort our request to have the High Schedule issue on the agenda:
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<This is about 9 minutes long. The first part of the clip and at the end is where we discuss the superintendent’s interpretation of our intent.
Below is a copy of the follow-up email to the president insisting that the agenda item not be worded in such a manner that it is dead on arrival. Which it would have been had we not challenged the superintendent’s framing of the issue.
High School Schedule
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| Michael Clára <donmiguelslc@gmail.com> |
Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 12:42 PM |
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To: Kristi Swett <kristi.swett@slcschools.org>
Cc: rosemary emery <rosemary.emery2@gmail.com>, McKell Withers <mckell.withers@slcschools.org>
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| President Swett,I wanted to clarify the misunderstanding that has surfaced about the request to place the High School Schedule on the board agenda.In our January 22, 2013 study session during the superintendent’s report, Dr. Withers stated (in so many words) that a February agenda item would be: “whether the board will relinquish their authority to make the schedule.As you may or may not recall, I disagreed with that language and interpretation of what we wanted on the agenda. I have since reviewed the unofficial minutes and my notes of the January 8, 2013 business meeting of the board.The draft minutes sate, “Rosemary Emery raised the issue of high school schedules. Michael Clara and Tiffany Sandberg joined her in asking that the issue be discussed in a later meeting. The board will add this topic to the agenda of a future meeting”According to my recollection and my notes, the discussion was initially on multiple levels. There were times where you and the vice president made statements such as “so to clarify….” And “to be clear…” etc in an effort to better understand Rosemary’s points.At the very end of the discussion Rosemary said words to the effect “what’s best for kids, I think what is best is that they have a choice and that the schools have a choice, that is the discussion I would like to see…pro child, pro education and we don’t have that right now”.Then Dr. Nelson said words to the effect, “How many people on the board would like to have that discussion?” Rosemary, Tiffany, Martine and I, agreed.Dr. Nelson then asked, “does that meet the criteria to put on the board agenda for discussion?” Someone replied in the affirmative and he said “then we should put it on the agenda for discussion”.To that end, I agreed to have this item placed on the agenda within the context of the principles of shared governance which state: “Shared governance is the Salt Lake City School District’s collaborative process for making decisions at school sites and in district departments. Shared governance requires each of us to work together with respect, trust, good faith effort, and purpose in pursuit of our mission: Student Learning. The board retains overall legal responsibility for governing the district but may delegate decisions, subject to periodic review and appropriate accountability.” (see Salt Lake City School District – Shared Governance Guide, page 2).I never understood our request to be one of the board “relinquishing its authority” which would be contrary to state law, board policy, written agreement and principles of shared governance.Rather, I understood our request to be one of respecting and implementing the process of shared governance and allowing the high schools to make a site based decision through their SIC and SCC. Which decision would eventually come to the board of education for approval.
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